


Fair Cruelty

by Le_Vicomte_de_Valmont



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Angst, BDSM, M/M, erotic asphyxiation, just a touch of gore?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Vicomte_de_Valmont/pseuds/Le_Vicomte_de_Valmont
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen had walked, time and again, unflinchingly over the brittle remains in the gentleman’s courtyard.  He had remained stoic during morbid procession after morbid procession.  He had stood by and dressed straw dolls in the ruined clothes of the babies that the gentleman had killed for that unthinkable ceremony.   But these things could all, someday, be regarded as fever dreams.  Lady Pole’s bloodstained dress, on the other hand, was quite real.  Sir Walter’s tears were quite real.  John Childermass was quite real.<br/>He cursed fate and fortune for seeing that the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, this monster, was the thing that loved him.<br/>All at once, the fairy’s voice was so near.  “My tender Stephen.”  He could feel his breath at his neck, like gentle, perverse, morning sunlight.  “Stephen...”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fair Cruelty

The night of January 8th, 1816 was merciless. Wind rushed across the Thames, throwing snow all about and snuffing out streetlamps. If there was any music or harsh singing to be heard from the pubs along the docks, the screaming of the night air smothered it.  
  
Stephen Black walked stiffly and silently along the river, holding shut the collar of his greatcoat and keeping his head bowed in the wind. He was not a reckless man by nature, but tonight he did not know where his path led and did not care, so long as it kept him far from Harley Street. At last he stopped, when the deep and clangorous tolling of bells sounded from above him.  
  
He turned to find the black silhouette of a church standing before him. It was an old thing, with a humble belfry, without turrets or spires, and it sported smooth, weathered bricks. It was certainly All Saints, but it looked so very different in the darkness. There were candles burning in the frosted windows. The light was rosy and low and it gilded the snowflakes that were whirling in the air. The bells continued.  
  
Stephen resolved to go inside and warm himself. His lungs burned from the chill and he did not know how long he had been walking. Perhaps he would pray.  
  
The bells carried on as he made his way through the churchyard and then fell silent when he rested a wet, gloved hand on the door. It was ten o’clock in the evening. He took a moment in the archway to wipe the dampness from his eyes. Could he bring himself to face a minister?  
  
Before he could reach for the iron latch, the door swung slowly open. What lay beyond the threshold was no chapel. Sweet, balmy steam rushed out of the doorway and over Stephen. His heart contorted in his chest as he took in the sight. He swallowed a cry and fought the urge to turn and run.  
  
A glorious, marble chamber sprawled out before him. It was finer than any great bathhouse of Rome that he could have imagined and it was alight with candelabras. Arching, stained glass windows depicted bacchanals, masked balls, and war. They cast weird moonlight and shadows on great pillars, which all had daunting cracks rising from their foundations. Delicate vines had crawled up from between the tiles on the floor in some places. There was an antechamber to the right, which housed a stretching pool, where crystal water flowed from the slacked mouths of fountains sculpted like harpies. To the left, there were dark curtains hanging. But just before him, down the length of what should have been the nave of the church, where the pulpit ought to have been, stood an ornate dias, upon which was a brilliant, clawed, copper tub, in which the gentleman with the thistle-down hair was reclining.  
“Stephen!” the gentleman greeted him. His lush voice echoed on the marble, so that the name sounded several times before the ghost of it died. He lifted a pale hand from the water and, with a smile, bade Stephen nearer. “Come!”  
  
Stephen stepped inside on unfeeling legs. The warmth stung his face and made his feet start to burn in his boots. He removed his gloves from his aching hands and went to close the door behind him, only to find that it had gone. Instead, there was a solid wall, decorated with a looming and jeweled mosaic that illustrated the sacrificing of a unicorn.  
  
“Come…”  
  
He drew in a deep, slow breath and turned. Then, all at once, Stephen was inexplicably at the side of the gentleman’s bath without having taken a single step. He pocketed his gloves and said, “Good evening, sir,” through his teeth. He set to steeling himself.  
  
Now that Stephen was so close, he could see that the copper tub was not well kept and had veins of discolouration running over it. Beside it stood a small, iron table, which hosted a platter of sweet meats, a goblet, a half-emptied bottle of wine, and about a dozen crystal decanters filled with, what Stephen presumed to be, oils and perfumes.  
  
The gossamer bath linens were draped most elegantly and they splayed out onto the floor. The gentleman’s fair head rested on a fine, thick towel, the colour of blood-soaked victory. His bathwater was opaque, like cream, and a luscious sapphire. It made his keen eyes blaze all the bluer. It smelled of salted honey and metal. Droplets of the blue water dotted his arm, which was settled on the edge of the tub. When he sat up slightly to speak to Stephen, some of it leaked down his neck and chest and left delicate stains. His skin was like stone, pearly and cold. It was a bizarre and beautiful vision.  
  
“You will be pleased to know, Stephen, that the second magician is still in agonies!”  
  
Stephen could only nod. He began to rub his stinging hands together and willed himself to hold the fairy’s delighted gaze.  
  
“He intends to bury the moss-oak at dawn. I can imagine that he weeps upon it even now; kissing its face, saving clippings of its hair!” The fairy gave a light laugh and leaned his head back upon the towel. “I daresay I shall be cheerful so long as he is mourning, Stephen! For it has been days and my spirit still soars!”  
  
At last, Stephen brought himself to tell him that he was very glad that he was so pleased, though he could not muster the strength to lie and say that he shared the fairy’s sentiments.  
  
“As I have told you,” the gentleman said, “knowing that his wife is very much alive makes this all the sweeter...”  
  
And he went on like that for a minute or two before Stephen said, “This is all very wonderful, sir. If I may, I would like very much to remove my coat.”  
  
“Ah, yes! Do! I should like you to stay awhile, Stephen.”  
  
“Excellent, sir.” His voice sounded far off. He noticed an ornate chair where there had not been one before, just behind him. The gentleman’s eyes were upon him, he knew, as he unfastened the buttons down his chest. Managing a smile, he set his coat neatly over the back of the chair.  
  
And in the silence, the sounds of the bathhouse reigned. There was a hissing from the pool in the antechamber, the moaning of the wind against the windows, and a consistent, far off drip, drip, dripping.  
  
The gentleman tilted his head back, his white neck stretching, and said, “Please sit, Stephen. I am so glad of your company!” He was smiling and his eyes were closed. His words began to drawl as he continued musing about the funeral the magician was holding. How preposterous and wonderful he thought it was.  
  
Stephen sat carefully. He set his jaw while he listened to the gentleman go on. The twisting in his insides, which he had been walking all evening to avoid, had begun again. All this talk of death…  
  
They had told him that John Childermass was not expected to survive the night. The bullet had struck true. Stephen had not been there, but every so often he could hear the hollow, crackling sound of the shot.  
  
“Won’t you, Stephen?”  
  
Stephen tensed. What to say? What had been the request? He swallowed and took in the sight of the gentleman with the thistle-down hair looking at him so eagerly. “Mm.” Stephen hummed, praying the fairy might continue.  
  
“Oh, good! Yours is the only judgment I could possibly trust.”  
  
Stephen went numb. What had he consented to judge?  
  
To Stephen’s relief, the gentleman waved his hand lazily at the pretty, iron table and said, “I have made my selection, but I simply cannot chuse between them! One’s eau de parfum, more often than not, directs the course of the entire evening.”  
  
“Indeed, sir,” Stephen said. He rose and stepped around the tub. He felt the gentleman’s gaze follow him as he surveyed the assembly of little decanters. “What will the evening call for, sir?”  
  
“Oh! the very best! I have a mind to dance as we have been, sharing the ladies between us; two dances with one, two dances with the other...”  
  
The fairy was referring to Lady Pole and Mrs. Strange. They were all he could think of now that the magician’s wife had come to Lost Hope. The mention of them forced Stephen to retreat further inside of himself. When he spoke again, in the women’s interest, he found that his voice was even farther away. “Sir, if I may say so, you are ever the paragon of gallantry. I have not met anyone so chivalrous as yourself.” The gentleman’s interest could be very keen and now that it had been renewed in regards to the ladies, Stephen feared for them both. He should not like to see the fairy lay a hand on them.*  
  
“Stephen!” The gentleman crooned, “That is a fine compliment, coming from you.”  
  
Stephen would have to face Lady Pole that evening in the ballroom. He would have to dance with her. He had seen them carry her to her bedchamber. She had been sedated and limp. Her walking dress was spoiled with the dark blood of John Childermass. They had had him tie her to the posts of her bed and lock her door. He had listened to her wailing in the night; cursing god and her husband and damning Mr. Norrell. Then, she had fallen silent once more, presumably when the physician tended to her with chloroform again. After that, Stephen had dressed and left the house.  
  
Taking up one of the phials, Stephen found that his fingers were shuddering. He withdrew the stopper and wafted the scent towards himself with a wave of his hand, inhaling deeply in hopes of soothing his nerves and steadying his grip.  
  
Stephen closed his eyes. The perfume stupefied him. It smelled of cloves, bruised plums, bittersweet nostalgia, and distant gardens burning.  
  
“Lovely, yes?” the gentleman said cheerily. “My youngest sister gave that to me three hundred years ago. On to the next! You shall see why I cannot bring myself to chuse…”  
  
Stephen selected one that contained a very scarce amount of dark oil. He inhaled. It smelled like stolen glances, pine needles, and the honeyed spot just behind a lover’s ear.  
  
“This is very fine, sir.” He managed, though his mouth was very dry. He was well acquainted with that scent.**  
  
“Indeed!”  
  
The next, in a particularly delicate phial, was very shocking, with something like frankincense and the unmistakable note of a bit of blood drawn from the lower-lip.  
  
“Another!”  
  
The fourth was a vanquishing combination of opium, the mist at dawn in the early springtime, and sweet, supple leather.  
  
Stephen’s nose was already burning. There were dozens more and he did not care to go on. Looking at the rest of them upon the table felt just as sickening as if he was looking at a plate piled with sweets after he’d eaten his fill on a holiday. “This,” he said definitively, replacing the stopper gently, “I daresay, seems so well suited to this evening that I doubt it could be bested, sir. It truly speaks to the occasion.”  
  
“Splendid!” The gentleman with the thistle-down hair shifted. “Won’t you decorate me, Stpehen?”  
  
“Certainly, sir.”  
  
“First, just a few drops into the water.”  
  
“Of course, sir.”  
  
“Perfect! And now…” The fairy extended his left hand, very gently, over the side of the tub.  
  
Stephen looked down to find that a gilded footstool had materialized at the base of the bath. His head felt heavier now, after taking in all of those perfumes, as if he’d just been roused from a dream. He nodded, set down the phial, and said, “One moment, sir.”  
  
When he set to removing his jacket, he realized how glad he would be to be free of it. Now that the night’s chill had left him, he had begun to perspire, whereas the fairy did not seem to ever sweat at all. The chamber was quiet once more, as he went to set the jacket alongside his abandoned coat upon the chair. He heard that incessant drip, drip, dripping again, echoing softly from somewhere. When he returned to the side of the tub, after retrieving the bottle of perfume, he turned up the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. Then, he knelt.  
  
The gentleman with the thistle-down hair tilted his head and observed as Stephen dealt with the crystal phial; opening it, pressing it to his palm, turning it over. He mused, “To think, I was so very bored of parties. It seems like ages ago! I have been so fulfilled as of late. Such fine company has found me…” He moved his fingers elegantly, entreating Stephen to begin, and he went on, saying, “My sisters would speak of nothing but their vanities and, I confess, I had been starved for conversation. Now I am rich in it! Oh, that feels most agreeable, Stephen.”  
  
Stephen nodded courteously. The gentleman’s hand looked fragile and terrible in his. It was a slender thing; as cold as glass and just as smooth. He turned it slowly, working the oil into the palm, over the knuckles, between each thin finger. As he went on, weird chills began to wind their way up Stephen’s arms.  
  
“Ah! How marvelous it smells. Her ladyship and the magician’s wife will be thrilled by it, I should think…”  
  
“Indeed, sir.”  
  
“How charming they are! Whispering in dark corners together so demurely, at the fringes of the dance floor. Like two dryads meeting to conspire in the shadows at the edge of a glade!”  
  
“Her ladyship has had a trying day, sir,” Stephen could not help but mention.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
The fairy ought to know! Stephen exhaled and pressed oil between the gentleman’s thumb and forefinger. “Yes, sir. I am sure she will be glad for the ball and time with yourself and her friend.”  
  
“What has her husband done against her?”  
  
Stephen could feel the gentleman’s hand begin to quiver in his grasp. He released it and stood, moving around the tub to find that there was another, low stool at the other side.  
  
Was the gentleman unable to comprehend what misery he had subjected the young lady to? Stephen was convinced that the fairy couldn’t know what hell his doings had brought upon him that evening. But, surely, having guided her ladyship’s hand, having personally compelled her to such violence, the gentleman ought to know very well what a nightmare Lady Pole had lived that day.  
  
“Stephen, what has he done to her?” The gentleman sat up, clutching the sides of the tub very fiercely.  
  
“Nothing, sir. Her husband is not at fault. She has simply been made excited by what transpired today, sir.”  
  
“Well, what has happened? Stephen, it is no time to be coy…”  
  
“Sir,” Stephen said, looking down upon the fairy. He endeavored desperately to soften his tone as he went on to suggest, “Surely you recall….”  
  
The gentleman with the thistle-down hair merely wet his lips and stared. And everything fell still and silent, save for that constant dripping.  
  
Stephen gripped the phial and set his jaw, uncertain of how to continue. How dare he dissuade Stephen from coyness when he was carrying on in such a fashion! Was the fairy truly so oblivious?  
  
Stephen was still unsure if he would be able to muster the will to ever show his face again at the house on Harley Street. When Sir Walter had delivered the key to the rifle-case back to him, the man’s face had been aflame, his eyes were made bright with the tears he withheld. And Sir Walter had gasped his displeasure and astonishment, hardly able to speak, hardly able to look at him. Stephen would never forget it.  
  
“But, of course you borrowed the key from the pocket of my jacket, sir, while I was away with you this afternoon,” Stephen managed to say. “Did you not lend Lady Pole the pistol? I had assumed as much, you see…”  
  
“Are you quite well, Stephen? This sort of balderdash is most irregular, considering your disposition…”  
  
“Please, pardon me, sir. I shall be frank. I am well aware that what occurred at Hanover Square was of your design.” Stephen drew in a deep breath and continued as kindly as he could while all of his insides were writhing with hate. “I am not upset by it at all. I just mean to say, sir, that her ladyship has had a most involved evening and that she will be glad of tonight’s revelries. Not to worry. That is all, sir…”  
  
“Indeed. But what transpired at Hanover Square, Stephen?”  
  
“The killing of Mr. Norrell’s servant, sir, of course.”  
  
“Oh?” The gentleman smiled. “The magician’s man has been put to death?”  
  
“Forgive me, not exactly, sir. We do not know if he has died. However, it is very unlikely that he will last until morning.”  
  
At this, the fairy lowered himself into the bath again. He leaned back and said, “Well!” as he ought to have if he had just been informed of a marriage or the birth of a child, not the terrible fate of an innocent man. “This is most delightful news! If that vile, little magician has a heart, it will most surely break!”  
  
“Indeed, sir.” Stephen’s throat was tight. He resolved to end the conversation. And so, he knelt again and entreated the gentleman very quietly for his right hand, which was given to him.  
  
The gentleman reclined and closed his eyes again, murmuring, “How marvelous,” just before falling still.  
  
Stephen focused on the curves of the gentleman’s hand. He listened closely and counted the droplets coming from that unseen leak somewhere in the bathhouse, trying to syncopate his breaths with them.  
  
The gentleman was responsible for the shooting, he was sure! Perhaps he did not want to admit to what he had done? Why not? He was so utterly shameless in all other things! He spoke ceaselessly of slaughter and vengeance! Why, Stephen had come to assume that the fairy could not feel guilt at all! Did the fairy know how wretched this happening in particular had made him? He wondered, for a moment, if he should flatter himself to think that the gentleman might be feigning ignorance out of love for him, in an attempt to retain Stephen’s good opinion of him. If that were the case, it was a very poorly crafted lie! For the fairy to say that he was unaware of what had transpired that day was to say that her ladyship had somehow stolen the keys from Stephen herself!***  
  
“Stephen…” the gentleman with the thistle-down hair murmured, “If you please.”  
  
Stephen looked up to find that the fairy had lifted his head and had set his free hand upon his sharp collarbone, indicating. Standing, Stephen said, “Certainly, sir.”  
  
“When this is through, we shall drink together and toast to the magicians’ misery and melancholy! I have the most delightful cordial set aside for this evening!”  
  
“Very good, sir.” Stephen said. His voice was hollow. He strode to the head of the bath, where he rolled up the cuffs of his sleeves a little further and lathered his hands.  
  
The gentleman sat up very elegantly. As he waited, he began to trace a small circle over and over upon the surface of the creamy, sapphire water with his finger. He declared, after a moment, “And we shall attend the funeral in the morning, Stephen! What a fine, little comedia it will be!”  
  
“Will they bury him so soon…” It took Stephen a moment to understand that the fairy was referring to Mrs. Strange -- or, rather, the moss-oak -- and not John Childermass. “Ah, yes. Yes, sir.” He drew his hands down the fairy’s sinewy neck. “Of course.”  
  
“Ah...” The fairy leaned into his touch. It was quiet again for a while until he said, “Stephen, how talented you are! I wonder if anyone has ever cared for me as properly you do. It has been so very long since I have been so soothed by someone.”  
  
Stephen continued silently, setting his hands on the sides of the gentleman’s cool face, pressing easily upon his temples.  
  
“You are a rare thing, Stephen.” The words were soft, but they lingered in the marble chamber. The name hung in the air once more.  
  
The love of such a tyrant was a thorned rose. The fairy’s praises were more sincere than any words that anyone else had ever spoken to him. But, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair was so sick in his entertainments and dangerously backwards in his ways, that there could be no pleasure in anything to do with him without guilt. Here was a creature that delighted in casting infants down from a tower, whose house stood upon the skeletons of those he had slaughtered, and who possessed Lady Pole to kill. And that same creature would radiate unfathomable joy upon seeing Stephen. He would call him noble and handsome, recognize his brilliance, show him great sights, seek him out day after day and bear his heart and confidences to him. The same lips that would confess their honeyed adoration would just as soon smile at the murder of John Childermass. How many people would come to terrible ends while Stephen stood by? What of her ladyship? What of Sir Walter? Someday Mrs. Brandy, even?  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Stephen said.  
  
The gentleman with the thistle-down hair sighed and it was a beautiful sound. It was like wind through rushes and the distant chiming of sleigh bells. Under Stephen’s touch, he turned his head just so.  
  
And Stephen felt the fairy’s lips against his fingers, as light as smoke. He felt his name breathed there. He stood still and, until the moment was through, focused on the dripping sound again, inhaling slowly.  
  
More and more often Stephen would find himself wishing that he could abandon his humanity. He wondered part of himself it would mean he would lose if he were to do such a thing. If this was the way things were to be, what was the point of resisting? Would it not serve him better to set himself to forgetting life as he once knew it, take what was given to him and consent to always live in Faerie without a care, without a conscience? He cursed the hope he still held so fast to, for that was what stayed him from such a free and graceless course; the slim chance that perhaps, one day, this would all end. Because this was not the way things ought to be. But then who was to say? Only one truth was steadfast in all of this; Stephen was so very, very tired.  
  
Suddenly, the gentleman said, “I shall see that a bath is drawn for you, as well, Stephen! And I shall attend to you, in turn!”  
  
“That is kind of you, sir, but there is no need. I have already bathed...”  
  
“Oh, but this is no practical thing! This is, very nearly, entirely cosmetic.” The gentleman explained. “Touch the water, Stephen.”  
  
He did. It was velvety and somehow warm and cool at once. His fingers tingled pleasantly and the sapphire colour lingered upon them when he withdrew them. “It is most agreeable, sir.”  
  
“It is water from mountain springs, collected under a blue moon, and a very careful mixture of camel’s milk, lavender oil, and the blood of a royal fairy child.”  
  
“Blood, sir?”  
  
“Indeed! That is what gives it its magic and its lovely hue, of course.” The gentleman said easily, “It must be very fresh. It is best that it is procured elegantly, by proper exsanguination; much like draining a prize hog or a stag.”  
  
Stephen stuttered. He was very aware of the coldness of the milk and blood upon his fingers. He understood now, what was in that chamber, behind that looming curtain across the way, standing before him. He knew the source of that ceaseless dripping. He could see the royal fairy child’s body in his mind’s eye and it hung high above the ground, strung up with pearls, and the blue blood that still fell from it shone black obsidian in the candlelight. And then, it was not the fairy child’s body at all, but the corpse of one John Childermass. And the jewels were sliding down his neck, into his hair. And it was Stephen’s fault. His heart was twisting again.  
  
“Stephen…”  
  
Stephen had turned away.  
  
“Stephen?”  
  
“Pardon me, sir.” He closed his eyes. “Just a moment…” One, ragged breath betrayed him.  
  
“Sweet Stephen! Oh, Stephen, my gentlest heart!” The fairy was cooing, “This was my rival’s heir! Of course! I assure you, I assure you. You see, it is something to be celebrated. It is no tragedy. I ought to have mentioned that! Come now, Stephen…”  
  
On another evening, Stephen would have retained his composure. He had endured so much and seen such atrocities that, to his horror and his relief, he was becoming properly disaffected to it all. But that night, to think of the gentleman sighing within a bath of blood, kissing Stephen’s fingers while a corpse dangled in the next room, dancing upon bones at his ball, drinking and laughing, all while John Childermass was bleeding out, made Stephen unravel.  
  
He had not heard the gentleman rise from the water, but somehow he felt the gentleman’s doting touch upon his shoulder.  
  
Stephen had walked, time and again, unflinchingly over the brittle remains in the gentleman’s courtyard. He had remained stoic during morbid procession after morbid procession. He had stood by and dressed straw dolls in the ruined clothes of the babies that the gentleman had killed for that unthinkable ceremony. But these things could all, someday, be regarded as fever dreams. Lady Pole’s bloodstained dress, on the other hand, was quite real. Sir Walter’s tears were quite real. John Childermass was quite real.  
  
He cursed fate and fortune for seeing that the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, this monster, was the thing that loved him.  
  
All at once, the fairy’s voice was so near. “My tender Stephen.” He could feel his breath at his neck, like gentle, perverse, morning sunlight. “Stephen...”  
  
Blindly, wildly, and with a cry, Stephen rounded and struck the gentleman with the thistle-down hair across the face.  
  
The sound of it was like a stone splitting. It reverberated through the chamber. For a moment, neither man said a word.  
  
The blood from the corpse in the antechamber could be heard slowly dripping and dripping and dripping.  
  
Stephen’s mouth was ajar.  
  
The fairy stood still and expressionless, with one fair hand over his heart. He had somehow come to be wearing his trailing, silken dressing gown. Moonlight framed him, casting his face in shadows.  
  
Stephen began to retreat. After a deep, rattling breath, he stammered, “Forgive me, sir.” He dropped to the floor and raised his shuddering hands, in a desperate attempt at decorum. “Sir, it was… Sir, I cannot… Please.”  
  
His words trailed away and hid within him somewhere. He sensed the fairy approaching, he heard the silk whispering on the tile. He prepared for death.  
  
But when death did not come, a small, wretched, lamenting moan escaped him. It was a plea; for mercy or for the end, he did not know. He fell and took up the hem of the fairy’s robe. There, at the gentleman’s feet, he felt, at last, the force of his soul-deep fatigue. He could not weep. He could not close his eyes tightly enough.  
  
“Stephen.”  
  
Stephen made to say something, but could not.  
  
“Stephen…”  
  
He felt the gentleman’s hand start to stroke his hair.  
  
“Oh, Stephen.” the gentleman murmured, “Your rage is divine.”  
  
Stephen held his breath when his face was turned up gently by the coaxing of the fairy’s fingers.  
  
The gentleman with the thistle-down hair was alight with fascination. His cheek, where he had been struck, bore no blemish. As he looked down upon Stephen, his thin lips were parted and his gaze was wide with wonder. When he spoke, his voice was slow and hushed, as if in reverence. “I have never seen you as I just did, Stephen. You have never been more beautiful to me. Oh, Stephen, you have never looked at me so!” His cold hand caressed the side of Stephen’s face.  
  
“Sir?” There was a rising frenzy of unbridled relief and a gnawing panic within him. He felt sick with it, as if he might wretch.  
  
The gentleman went on. “Why, were I less decorous, I might always strive to anger you. Alas, I could not say what it is that I did to provoke you...” His face was flushed. “How regal you looked, how fair, in that fleeting moment when you lost yourself after you had struck me. Do stand,” he said. When Stephen could not, with just the force of his finger at his chin, the fairy drew him to his feet. “I cannot, in good faith, seek to inspire you to further violence, Stephen, as you are my dearest friend.” Then, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair beseeched him, “But, I would have you strike me again.”  
  
Upon hearing this, a laugh escaped him. It was a choked, exasperated thing. Stephen should have been horrified at himself, but he felt strangely, as though he did not fit properly inside of his body. He felt very small. The fairy’s ecstatic delight at Stephen’s violence starkly illuminated the futility of it all. The blow he had landed upon the gentleman’s face had been true; it ought to have left a mark, if not strain his neck. But there he stood, pristine and delighted. Stephen’s rage did not only fail to harm the fairy, it thrilled him. It made Stephen feel as weak as a child. Even employing all of his might, he was powerless. Stephen too often found he was powerless.  
  
And the gentleman with the thistle-down hair was laughing, too. It was a short, trilling sound. “Yes, it shall be marvelous fun! I would like it very much, indeed!” He took Stephen’s hand for a moment, caressing it until their respective laughter subsided. Then, he turned his head and offered his white cheek, running his fingers gracefully along his jaw. “There…”  
  
Stephen stared. His legs were shaking. “Sir,” he said, “I cannot.”  
  
There was a pause. Then, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair murmured, “Stephen, I insist.”  
  
“Sir.”  
  
“Stephen.” The name was a candied threat.  
  
Stephen struck him.  
  
“Come, now.” The gentleman bade him in an eager whisper, “Boldly!”  
  
Stephen loathed the creature before him. He resented the fairy’s pure joy, his pure love, his undying devotion, his undying beauty. Would he never be free from this adoring monster? Stephen often wished that the gentleman hated him; that would simplify it all. But the gentleman with the thistle-down hair might love him forever.  
  
This time, Stephen brought the back of his hand against the fairy’s cheek.  
  
“Boldy, my dear Stephen!”  
  
“Sir. Sir, please, it is most undignified. I cannot…” Oh, but he could. He could do so and relish it. He could strike again and again and never tire. All the pain the gentleman had brought to him, he could give back ten fold! But what would that make him?  
  
“Oh,” The gentleman reached for Stephen’s face adoringly, “but you see what is dignified to a king is quite…”  
  
But before the fairy could touch him, Stephen beat his terrible hand away.  
  
“Ah! Yes!”  
  
And then the back of his hand met the gentleman’s bright face again. When he gasped with delight, Stephen growled in turn and grabbed his shoulders and gave a mighty shove. His wrists strained, for the fairy was so strangely heavy; it was as if he was filled with mortar.  
  
But the gentleman with the thistle-down hair went sprawling back onto the tile with a hiss of silk and a soft, dull sound. He gazed up at Stephen. The ornate folds of his dressing gown were splayed around him. He was rapturous when he said, “Look at you, my dear Stephen…”  
  
Stephen did not allow him to go on. He strode towards him and bent to grab him. The fairy did not recoil, but almost rose up to meet Stephen’s hand as he took the front of his robe in a tight fist. He threw the gentleman to the side, so that his palms struck the floor with a clap.  
  
“Stephen-“ his delighted cry was cut short by two, swift kicks to his ribs. He melted to the floor. He was undone, lying in the pool of silk, with the front of his robe askew so that his chest was laid bare. His white hair was nearly free of the ribbon that held it. He was looking up at Stephen like a starved man.  
  
Clenching his teeth, Stephen knelt beside him and took hold of his pale throat, drawing him up from the tile, wringing his neck.  
  
The gentleman’s hands shook as they danced over and scraped at Stephen’s straining arms. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide. A small sound fluttered up from the depths of him. He was euphoric, writhing blissfully, arching his back.  
  
Stephen held him for some time, pressing with all of his strength, with all that he had. But it was as if he were strangling a marble statue and it was not long before his fingers began to burn. When he released the gentleman, Stephen turned away and wept. He was so horrified at himself and he was so desperately tired.  
  
The sound of the dripping corpse in the antechamber had ceased, casting the bathhouse into ringing silence.  
  
The fairy was gasping.  
  
Stephen sobbed soundlessly, bowing his head. He folded his hands together. His knuckles were burning and already starting to bruise over. His fingers were limp.  
  
Eventually, the gentleman’s touch crawled up his back and those terrible hands closed around his heaving shoulders. He whispered Stephen’s name to the back of his neck.  
  
“Are you hurt, sir?” Stephen choked, not moving.  
  
“No, my beauty,” the gentleman replied.  
  
Stephen had run out of tears.  
  
“Though, I have bitten my tongue.”  
  
“Perhaps, sir,” Stephen managed, his voice trembling “you ought to dress for the ball. We have tarried here for some time…”  
  
“You are quite right, Stephen.”  
  
Stephen took a moment to compose himself before he rose up from the floor. Turning, he offered the gentleman his hand and the gentleman took it. And the chamber flickered. And as he helped the fairy to his feet, there was a warm rush of wind from nowhere and the bathhouse was swept away. When everything settled, Stephen realized they were in a familiar dressing room at Lost Hope. There were tall, slender windows with their tattered drapes closed, a hearth with a fire blazing, and one of the carpets that Stephen knew far too much about. He took a step away to steady himself, his back meeting with a cold, towering mirror.  
The fairy smiled and brought Stephen’s dark hand to his mouth. Stephen felt the gentleman’s tongue between his knuckles, then felt his lips upon them, then his teeth biting ever so gently.  
  
His kiss left a glossy trace of his sapphire blood upon Stephen’s skin.  
  
The firelight glinted in the gentleman’s blue eyes. He was looking at Stephen with a new hunger that threatened to steal his breath. There was color upon his cheekbones and his beautiful hair had been loosed from its ribbon. His blood made a black border at the corners of his lips like a wine stain. It made his mouth look wider and weirder when he said, “Oh, you shall make a very fine king, Stephen.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Stephen replied numbly, as the fairy’s hands moved gently and greedily up his chest.  
  
“Kiss me, Stephen.”  
  
He did at once. He kissed the gentleman with the thistle-down hair very spitefully, threading his fingers through his lovely, gossamer hair. His blue blood tasted like unsweetened absinthe and his lips made Stephen’s go cold. Stephen was overwhelmed with the scent of opium, the mist at dawn in the early springtime, and sweet, supple leather. He felt the fairy’s long nails pressing ruthlessly into the back of his neck.  
  
“Slowly,” the gentleman commanded.  
  
Stephen obeyed, but his kiss was no less bitter.  
  
Kissing the gentleman was like downing burning swallow after burning swallow of fine liquor, in that it was exquisite and rare, terribly painful at first, but there was no saying that it was not to be relished. And, of course, then it got easier to take as Stephen went on, because it rendered him dizzier and dizzier and further from himself. So much of loving the gentleman was like that.  
“Oh, Stephen.” The fairy breathed to Stephen’s mouth before biting at his lip and drawing him near, so that their frames were flush with one another. His touch trailed down the seams of Stephen’s waistcoat, running over his ribs. He took Stephen’s hips in his voracious grip and pressed hard against him.  
  
At this, Stephen drew away from the kiss to take in a breath. “S-sir,” he stammered. When the gentleman’s teeth found his neck, he seized up and a rattling sigh escaped him. “Oh…”  
  
The fairy bit down hard.****  
  
“Oh, sir!”  
  
And he snaked hand about him, to secure to the small of Stephen’s back, holding him fast as he trembled in his clutches. Eventually, the fairy drew his tongue up Stephen’s neck, proceeding to kiss the sharp line of his jaw while he whispered, “You are very right to be angry, you know.”  
  
What did he know? What could he possibly know of his anger? Stephen turned his head away.  
  
But the gentleman kept him in his iron embrace and pushed him up against to the mirror as he spoke to Stephen’s ear, “No one sees you as I do; as you truly are. Oh, you noble thing.” His mesmeric voice was a low, tremoring growl. He rocked his hips very slowly as he continued. “One day, I will arrange it so that you may destroy them; everyone who has ever cheated you of your true potential. You and I shall punish them for their blindness. We will ruin them. You will end them all with your sublime and royal fury.”  
  
They were poisoned words. It was horrible; horrible because the fairy was very right in that he was cheated in every way, but he did not truly see. As much as he claimed to love him, to adore him, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair would never know him. He couldn’t. And Stephen could bear no more of that sort of talk, not when he was so very near to forgetting the day, his woes, himself... So he twisted his fingers deeper into the fairy’s tresses and wrenched his head back viciously.  
  
The gentleman moaned through his bloodied teeth.  
  
Suddenly, Stephen felt one of those terrible hands clutch him fiercely between his legs. He cried out.  
  
“Ah, ah!” The gentleman scolded, “That is not the way…”  
  
Stephen had relinquished his grip on the fairy’s mane of hair and closed his eyes, steadying himself as best he could by grabbing the lapels of the his silk gown. When he looked again, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair was leering at him.  
  
“Kneel before me,” he said. “You are no king yet! For now, for just a little while longer, Stephen, you are mine.” 

  


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

* To his horror, Stephen would later contemplate if this might be, in part, due to jealousy.

** He had come to know that this was one of the scents that the fairy favoured. As gentlemen of a certain caliber and disposition are often wont to do, the gentleman with the thistledown hair entertained very familiar friendships with male colleagues. As such, Stephen had come to know this eau de parfum very well. He encountered it when the gentleman danced with him at bacchanals, when the gentleman would lean near to him at a Faerie opera and murmur clever things in his ear, when the gentleman would end an evening sighing into the crook of his neck, etc.  
In fact, Stephen had noted that the gentleman was wearing that perfume earlier in the day. The fairy had arranged to have a new jacket commissioned for Stephen and they had met with a very peculiar tailor, with pure, black eyes and no mouth. At one point over the course of the fitting, he had told the tailor to step aside and had drawn near to Stephen, so that he could move an out-of-place pin for himself and adjust the lapel.  
“There,” he had said. “Perfection.”

*** In fact, she had. The day that Lady pole was informed of the supposed death of Arabella Strange, she was most distressed. That night, when she met Mrs. Strange in the ballroom at Lost Hope she became enraged at the magician Mr. Norrell and resolved to kill him. Her ladyship had endured years of the nightmare he had wrought and had very nearly resigned herself to her lot, but she would not stand to see her friend share in her fate. She resolved to acquire a pistol, as it would strike truest. In the knowledge that Stephen carried the keys to the case in which her husband kept his, she subtly studied her butler’s habits and schedule, never having reason to consider his doings before.  
While Stephen supposed that the gentleman with the thistledown hair had taken the key when Stephen had been with him at the tailors or else simply used magic to provide it to her ladyship, Lady Pole had stolen it from Stephen’s jacket pocket. She had done so after he had hung it in the corridor, in the servant’s quarters, while he was assisting with the preparations for dinner in his shirtsleeves. The fairy had not, in fact, aided or abetted her at all. She had done everything of her own accord. And while her guilt over having shot John Childermass bothered her, her distress at not having shot Gilbert Norrell maddened her. 

**** This would leave one of the marks that Stephen would bear upon his neck at the ball that evening.


End file.
